Daily discoveries in the mystical green heart of Brooklyn

Greenmarket

May 10, 2014

THE LOCAL ASPARAGUS ARE IN! So is the spinach! Can strawberries be far behind?

And in other Greenmarket news...Under the radar, as it were, a small but gifted community of artists and makers have begun selling their wares at the periphery of my beloved Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket each Saturday. The scattering of stalls along the beginnings of Prospect Park West are notable for their delightful originality. Not all my favorites were there today, but four of them were:

The enchanted foxes and other creatures of Estonian-born Brooklynite Kristiana Pärn seem to have wandered out of a Wes Anderson dreamscape. Her works on wood panel, prints, and stationery are gently drawn (and gently priced).

We bought one of her bunnies for the Daughter's room years ago and I think we need some foxes. If you can't make it to the plaza, she sells on Etsy here.

I love the celadon-glazed pottery of Frank Saliani of 20th Avenue Studios; love the rich, varied colors and the inviting, organic shapes. Craft fairs always seem to have way too many pottery people selling similar-looking stuff, but his work is really distinctive and elegant.

I would so give a set of these little bowls as a wedding present if anyone I knew were getting married.

Bits of wood, pennies, Scrabble tiles are all jewels in the hands of Robert Heller, whose "Planet Ert" of rings, earrings, and greeting cards carry a happily hippie-ish vibe.

His rainbow of enameled earrings moved about in the warm breeze like petals. He's on Etsy here.

Vintage-look textile patterns adorn dresses for big and little girls and an array of handsome tote bags made by Maruska Saunders, who calls her sewing enterprise "Stinky Minky." According to her website, she once made cowboy shirts for Roy Orbison.

Her work reminds me of my mother's; to this day, I can't see a cute pattern on some cotton without hearing her say, "I could run up a sundress in an afternoon." (I, alas, cannot.)

(Worth noting: no felted owls have been seen to date at this burgeoning craft market. The family and I have a bit of a "drinking game" around felted owls, which tend to figure heavily in the Brooklyn handmade scene. I love felted owls, don't get me wrong...but the borough is overrun with them! Perhaps they feed on artisanal pickles...)

January 11, 2014

The very personification of post-holiday blues: A windblown, rain-soaked Saturday Greenmarket, on the day the Christmas trees get chopped to smithereens at the Mulchfest (tomorrow, too). I buy a few apples and some bread, get my hopes dashed that any greens have robustly survived the previous week's brutal "polar vortex," and even manage to be weirdly depressed by the sudden 50-degree temperature spike.

And then, just as the brief pounding rain abates, I hear it: an impossibly joyful trumpet, burbling within one of the columned shelters at Grand Army Plaza. My video cuts off before his final flourish, in which he somehow blew his few rapt listeners a little brassy "air kiss." Hours later, the delight has still not worn off.

November 16, 2013

At today's Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket, a soft November sun turned so much to molten gold. It was like a child's picture-book version of Thanksgiving bounty.

Peppers, incredibly, are still abundant, although one has to pick to avoid those with soft wrinkly cheeks; eggplant and zucchini from southern Jersey were also remarkably good.

I gave the summer veg one last chance, deciding to wait on things like this golden cauliflower that peeked from its bonnet of leaves. These and the other cruciferous guys will be around a good while longer.

Apples are still at peak. The Honeycrisp variety is more expensive, but has an extra flavor note that I think of as "gingersnap."

On hand today were Emily and Melissa Elsen, the enterprising young ladies behind Four & Twenty Blackbirds, a superb pie establishment I have haunted down near the Gowanus. Their new cookbook, The Four & Twenty Blackbirds Pie Book, looks phenomenal and has the magic instructions for making Salted Honey Pie, my current addiction. I enjoyed a wonderful conversation about all things Pie (although I stopped short of an exposition of my theory of the Pieness of Pie). and assured them that the book will shoot to the very top of my Christmas list.

The backdrop for today's market was a scrim of gold, russet, and a bit of green. This tree is one of the park's brand-new youngsters, a sapling with the mighty task of replacing some of the countless trees lost to Sandy and Irene. It sheds its leaves onto the history-rich soil of Prospect Park for the very first time.

GREENMARKET DOG OF THE DAY

Moses is a 7-year-old English bulldog who was born in Pennsylvania. His human says Moses likes chilling on soft blankets. I would love to join him in that.

We got a chunk of swordfish and a few delicata squash; grilled the swordfish by flashlight (the days are shortening so quickly!) and roasted the squash slices with apples and onions and rosemary. Between now and Thanksgiving is such a wonderful time of gold and orange; why is the commercial world so intent on obliterating it under a tide of red and green?

GREENMARKET DOG OF THE DAY

Poor lute player; for high-impact facial hair, this Belgian Griffon named Milos had him beat. Milos's buddy, a black Griffon named Raspberry, was short-haired and resembled a bat-like pug, but wouldn't pose for me; Milosz is greeting a new acquaintance, in what turned into a freeform canine speed-date.

July 10, 2013

Decided to cut through the park to the Wednesday Greenmarket. Watched the preparation of the stage for tonight's New York Philharmonic concert. Enjoyed the flutter of a kite.

Then suddenly, a blue jay hectored loudly and every other bird went silent...followed by a very near cry overhead that sounded like Kyrie! Kyrie!

A red-tailed hawk coasted a few feet above my head and landed in a low branch near the Long Meadow. I crept closer to take shot after shot of him, as he glared down at me, for all the world as if he were sizing me up as prey.

Their eyes have a far higher "flicker fusion frequency" than ours, enabling them to see clearly at high speeds--a lesson not lost on the silent little birds around us.

Those talons are impressive, and the feathers are marked like royal ermine. The guy just bears himself like he knows he's king (queen?) of the food chain.

After a few moments, he took off, and within seconds the vigilant sparrows resumed twittering.

April 02, 2013

Has this winter been more interminable than most? Last March featured a bizarre turbo-springing heat wave, and by now the magnolias had shot their bolts and the hyacinths were fainting. This year, on the verge of April, the park is still mostly bare (except for brave daffodils in the undergrowth), and in my own garden, the croci have mostly forgotten to party.

At the Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket, bags of increasingly aged roots still predominate, but a cheering mountain of spinach appeared before the arch. The sun was strong enough for shades, and hothouse tulips (and pink shirts) bloomed.

Forced cherry blossoms are a fine choice for local residents, many of whom inhabit homes with 20-foot ceilings.

At the Blue Moon Fisheries stand, the mackerel are running; Daughter was enchanted by the perky cartoon fishies.

On Saturdays, we park on President Street, grab a coffee from the Love Truck guy (who reminds us of Luke in "Gilmore Girls"), and cruise the market, then finish our errands while munching a pastry from Bread Alone (or, if we are virtuous, an apple). President Street should be aflame with forsythia by now, but they are barely budging; however, these enormous hellebores were nodding in a brownstone front garden. They are also called Lenten rose--how appropriate for this tardy spring, since Lent just ended!

January 27, 2013

The arctic temperatures, not the token snowfall, were the story at the Grand Army Plaza greenmarket, where the lettuce was frozen and the snakes were grumpy at being made to wear lacy mantillas.

Over
on the Long Meadow, the parents and kids of Park Slope and environs
bundled up and set forth in search of snowy fun. Everyone sort of kidded
themselves that there was much more snow than there actually was. In
fact, even in the frigid air, it was still muddy enough to smell the
earth.

Spouse and I reminisced about bringing Daughter and her snow-saucer contraption over to the park in far deeper snow; meanwhile, across the street in the public library, said Daughter gamely endured an interview for a prestigious university.

Everyone talks about "surviving" various phases of early childhood, but by the time people are hounding your child for the umpteenth recitation of her scores, talents, grades, clubs, and "passion," the years when happiness could be bought with a snow saucer and a restorative lunch of Spaghetti-Os seem exquisitely simple. Today, we warmed up with a Thai lunch, assuring her over dumplings that it would all work out fine.

June 17, 2012

The biggest news at yesterday's Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket:peaches are two weeks early. And they're good ones. Daughter and I devoured them on the spot with juice running off our chins. We have eaten a sack of them in 24 hours.

I was struck by a series of vibrant color matchings in the clear June sunshine, starting with yellow and dark chocolate bouquets.

Blueberry and tomato must be the flag of some country where it's always summer.

Green or yellow? The eternal dilemma for summer squash...

...as well as beans. (Solution: get both.)

Seduced by some grilled samples at the information booth (doled out by a young lady who admitted being a vegetarian), we picked up some kielbasa from Flying Pigs Farm for Fathers' Day breakfast (and made it fly across the arch). It was wonderful, as smoky as a campfire. As long as this exists, I will never be a vegetarian, especially since the Flying Pigs are humanely raised and happy ones.

GREENMARKET DOG OF THE DAY

She can haz cookie. Her owners were in a hurry but said her name was Ducky. I'm not sure if she's a Bichon or a poodle but she loves sprinkles.

June 10, 2012

The sugar snap pea avalanche has arrived! I've been snacking on them incessantly. Pulling the string out of the pod is intensely pleasurable if you are as obsessive as I am.

The Quadriga, as seen from flower-pot level. I love the juxtaposition of these noble steeds in the sky atop their arch of triumph...

...gazing down at all the rural goodness and its assorted celebrants.

GREENMARKET DOG OF THE DAY

It was a dark and stormy night. A pit bull followed a man down the street. She was emaciated and wounded; her rescuers believe she may have been used as a "bait" dog in fighting rings. But the story of Maggie, who was rehabilitated and adopted, has a happy ending. Although she can still be a little too assertive with other dogs, said her owner, this girl is so gentle she snorgles babies.

May 20, 2012

Before sampling the madness of yesterday's GoogaMooga Festival, I did make it to the Greenmarket at Grand Army Plaza. Rhubarb was still a painful $5 a pound (it takes a lot of raw rhubarb to make a pot of stewed rhubarb, and I cannot get through spring without a pot of stewed rhubarb). However, local strawberries were "down" to 2 boxes for $10. Sigh.

What caught my eye were the flowers. It's a great time of year for tender, old-fashioned ones that few commercial florists ever carry. Above: Dame's Rocket, a.k.a. Hesperis. In my garden, this flower refuses to grow anywhere except between the cracks of cement; there is nothing like a dame.

I believe these are "Bachelor's Buttons," a.k.a. Cornflowers. (Apparently they grow wild in some cornfields.) Now when someone describes "cornflower-blue eyes," you can verify.

I don't know what these are. If I had a SmartPhone, could I get an app that would let me wave my phone over a blossom and identify it? If you know what these are, leave a comment and let me know!

GREENMARKET DOG OF THE DAY

The fringed sausage is definitely named Banjo. Her big buddy is named something serious that begins with G...Grimsby? Anyway, they are great friends. It's nice to know a friend has your back...literally.